Article Source: InterPress Service

Most of these women had never known what it is to have the dollar a day everyone speaks of.

Most of these women had never known what it is to have the dollar a day everyone speaks of. And last year, they were seen as good enough between them to be lent a billion and a half dollars. True, that much money was lent to a total of more than 10 million women; but that is its success. It means no more than an average of 150 dollars, still a big average for millions of women who have never known a solid roof, or more than a diet of rice and chillies. And to a few million among them, it was a dramatic leap out of poverty; with them their families, so multiply one of these womens success five times. And that was just last year. This year those women in the villages of the southern Indian state Andhra Pradesh plan to raise close to 2 billion dollars in commercial loans, in this mass exodus out of poverty. On scale and success, this movement overtook the celebrated Grameen Bank in Bangladesh about two years back.

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